Megan Clarida of Loves Park is a barrel racer and champion bull rider who has also won multiple pageant crowns in Illinois. She’s pictured Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, at The Rockin PJJR Ranch, where she manages the horse farm. (Photo by Kevin Haas/Rock River Current)By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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LOVES PARK — Megan Clarida rolls up the left leg of her denim jeans to reveal a mark one might not expect to see on a multi-crown winning pageant queen.
It’s the imprint of a hoof left by a bull that outweighs her by a factor of about 12 to 1.
“Here’s one foot print. Here’s the other foot print,” the 26-year-old Loves Park woman said last week, showing off the battle scars of her latest bull riding competition. “I have lots of scars. I have hoofprints all over me.”
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Clarida is often the only woman competing against a field of men in bull riding, a dangerous rodeo sport where even the world’s best riders get injured. She’s also a pageant queen, a future mortician and a mental health advocate who was galvanized to help others after the death of her father by suicide in 2018.
“The combination of everything is really what shocks a lot of people. She goes in so many different directions and puts her all into everything,” said Colleen Christian, a friend and barrel racer from Rockton. “I don’t know when she sleeps.”
The nine-time pageant winner, whose crowns range from Loves Park Young at Heart Queen to Miss National Sweetheart of America, also holds her own in the arena. Last week in Lee County she held on for the longest ride of any of the 15 bull riders, all of whom were men. She’s won women’s bull riding championships in New Mexico and Texas, and last year she won a bull riding competition at the Winnebago County Fair among a field of about 30 men.
She’s competed in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Aside from a pair of women-only leagues in the south, she’s usually the only female competitor.
“Around here there’s only been one other girl I rode with — in Indiana,” Clarida said.
Megan Clarida competes at the Lee County Fair on Saturday, July 27, 2023, in Amboy. (Photo by TwoBit Photography/Provided by Megan Clarida)The Harlem High School and Highland Community College graduate will soon depart for Southern Illinois University, where she’s pursuing a degree in mortuary science and funeral services as she works toward a future career as a mortician.
Her pageant success has helped pay her college tuition. Her skill and fearlessness on a bull have made her an inspiration for young girls at rodeo events, friends and fellow rodeo competitors say.
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Take for example last week at the Lee County Fair. Before Clarida rode two bulls that night, the announcer bellowed over the PA system, “Who out in the crowd thinks a cowgirl can do anything a cowboy can do?”
“That was one of the loudest cheers of the night,” said Matt Wright, the owner of Rugged Cross Cattle Co. in Grand Ridge, where Clarida learned the ropes of the sport.
Girls and boys lined up along the gates after the event to get pictures and autographs with her.
“There’s always going to be that little girl out there who sees somebody like her doing it and knows that it’s possible,” Wright said.
‘She’s just got natural talent’
Clarida has competed in barrel racing, a horseback rodeo event, for about 13 years. She said she had long searched for the opportunity to test herself at bull riding, but breaking into the sport as a woman was hard.
“We couldn’t find anywhere that would take me to even let me on a bull,” she said. “Being a female in a male sport, it’s very difficult.”
Wright’s Rugged Cross Cattle Co. was the only place Clarida could find that would let her on a bull. So she made the roughly 1.5-hour drive from Loves Park to Grand Ridge to learn the sport.
“That’s what we do. We help people get started no matter their age, race, sex, creed, whatever,” said Wright, who owns the ranch with his wife, Meghann. “If they don’t have some place to try it and get into it, then the sport’s going to die.”
Wright said female riders have come and gone from Rugged Cross, but none have stuck with the sport with the determination Clarida has displayed.
“We’ve had a handful of girls come out and try it, but we’ve not had any girls try it and stick with it like Megan has,” he said. “She’s pretty dang tough, and I think there’s a little stubbornness she’s got that keeps her going.”
Clarida picked up on instructions quickly during her first lesson three years ago, but Wright hadn’t taught her a key technique before her first ride: how to get off the bull.
“We never told her the proper way to get off of a bull when her eight seconds is up because we didn’t think she was going to make it to that point,” he said.
But her first ride went for the full eight seconds.
“When that happened, the bull she was on actually stopped and she reached down and grabbed him by the horn and just kind of swung off,” Wright said. “We were all kind of laughing. It was a good thing that bull wasn’t really mean.”
Clarida admitted that fear kept her clutched to the braided rope during her first bull ride. Part of the reason the sport is so dangerous is because every mount ends with the rider being flung to the dirt, requiring them to roll away and get up quickly before they’re trampled.
“You don’t step off nice and easy when you’re done riding,” Wright said. “The only way to get off them is to hit the ground, and you don’t always know how you’re going to hit the ground or what you’re going to hit the ground with.”
Megan Clarida heads toward the ground at the Bulls at the Bar event in 2022 at Psycho Silo Saloon in Langley. (Photo by Dale Ropp/Provided by Megan Clarida)Adult bulls can weigh roughly between 1,100 and 2,200 pounds. Clarida measures in at 5’2 and 102 pounds.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a 900-pound steer or a 2,000-pound bull, they’re strong. They’re very, very strong,” Wright said. “It’s hard to find girls who are willing to and can deal with that strength.”
There’s debate about whether her size is an advantage or disadvantage in bull riding. Her shorter legs make it harder for her to wrap them around a bull than taller male competitors. But some joke that her size makes it so that a bull hardly feels her on top of it.
Wright points out that one of the world’s best bull riders, Brazilian Jose Vitor Leme, also has a small stature at 5’6 and 139 pounds. Clarida, he said, has the type of size-to-strength ratio that allows her to compete at a high level.
“She just got natural talent. She has a natural balance to her,” he said. “Her size and strength are really good for the sport.”
‘That girl is not scared of anything’
Christian, the barrel racer from Rockton, said she had never met a female bull rider until connecting with Clarida on an equestrian trail about four years ago. Why don’t more women try the sport?
“I really think it’s fear, and that girl is not scared of anything,” Christian said. “You could get stuck and you can get trampled and you can get killed. She knows all that and she still jumps on anyway.”
For Clarida, the fear she faced didn’t come just from the bull, but from stepping into a male-dominated sport as a woman.
“A lot of guys won’t speak to me when I first get there because I don’t belong in their world,” she said. “After they get to know me, or after I ride, they realize that I’m not just there for a show, I’m there because I do truly love the sport and know what I’m doing.”
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She said it was a lonely experience at first, but she was determined to prove herself.
“It’s scary going to some rodeos and having not a single person talk to you until after you ride,” she said. “Starting being the only female out here it was very tough. If I would’ve given up, that would’ve been it.”
Megan Clarida competes in February 2022 in the Womens Professional Bull Riding Palo Pinto County Cowboy Church arena in Santo, Texas. (Photo by Palo Pinto Cowboy Church/Provided by Megan Clarida)Christian said she’s seen crowds in shock when announcers call out a female bull rider, or when the audience sees Clarida remove her helmet and reveal hear sandy blonde hair after a ride.
“Everyone can’t believe it when she comes off the bull and she actually makes the whole ride, and she takes her helmet off and they’re like, ‘oh my gosh, it’s this little tiny girl,'” Christian said.
She said Clarida often wins over both crowds and competitors, and is “a huge inspiration for a lot of younger women.”
Wright has seen it, too. His 17- and 18-year-old daughters, who compete in barrel racing and trick riding, let the men who train alongside Clarida know she’s not to be underestimated.
“My daughters give the guys at the house crap all the time when they come out. You know, don’t let Megan show you up because she can out ride all of you guys,” he said.
Finding her future
Clarida has spent the past six years managing the horse farm at The Rockin PJJR Ranch in Rockton, caring for all aspects of 18 horses from cleaning to feeding. She also works part-time at Sunset Funeral Home in Machesney Park.
Aside from bull riding, she’s also competed in barrel racing, roping, pole bending and flag racing.
“She dabbles in a lot of different things and really excels at it,” Christian said. “I feel like there’s always going to be something new, and she’s just constant going to be adding something new. At this point it’s not going to surprise anybody. It’s like, oh, she’s an astronaut now.”
Clarida said she felt a calling to mortuary work, which partially stemmed from the death of her father, Craig, at age 53.
“I never got that closure with him. So in this aspect helping other families get closure of their loved ones and seeing that they have gone peacefully and we’ve done the best that we can,” Clarida said. “That really makes me happy that I can at least help others have closure when I didn’t.”
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She’s also found ways to advocate for mental health organizations through rodeo events. On Sunday, she’s hosting the Craig Clarida Suicide Awareness Speed Show at Circle KD Trailriders Club, 29746 Moose Range Road, Sycamore. The event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., benefits the Tommy Corral Memorial Foundation, which works to spread education on factors that lead to suicide, as well as RAMP and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Megan Clarida walks her horse Cowboy through The Rockin PJJR Ranch on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, in Rockton. Cowboy, 22, is one of three horses Clarida owns and cares for. (Photo by Kevin Haas/Rock River Current)She said she never tries to force help on people who may be facing depression, but she always offers an open ear.
“If I have things pushed on me, I draw back farther, because then it’s like someone saying, ‘hey, I see there’s something wrong with you, you need to talk about it,” she said. “I just like to say if you need someone to talk to, I’m always here.”
Craig Clarida never got to see his daughter compete in bull riding, although it’s something she always told him she would do one day.
Her father and mother instilled in her a work ethic that continues to this day. She worked three jobs in order to scrounge up the $1,000 needed to buy her first horse at age 17. She still works two jobs, and has three horses: Cowboy, 22, Phantom, 5, and Sunday, 6.
While a love of dressing up and interacting with her community led her to pageants, it was the adrenaline rush that pushed her toward bull riding.
“I get bored easily, so I like to find things that keep me on the edge, excited,” she said. “I like adrenaline.”
That feeling keeps her getting back on the bull despite being stepped on multiple times, pulling her LCL and twisting her knee cap in buck offs gone wrong.
“I can truly say that I love the sport of bull-riding. It’s a different ride every time you get on,” she said. “It’s the unpredictableness that I guess I enjoy.”
Megan Clarida poses for a photo with her horse Cowboy on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, at Rockin PJJR Ranch in Rockton. (Photo by Kevin Haas/Rock River Current)She said one of the most rewarding moments in the sport came a year ago, when she bested 30 other competitors to win an all-woman bull riding event in New Mexico.
“That was one of the coolest feelings, not knowing any of these girls and they were all so excited for me,” she said.
She regularly draws attention at area rodeos when people learn a female rider is going to compete, Christian said.
“The crowd literally everyone stands up and their full focus is on her and everyone’s just going crazy more for her than any of the guys,” she said.
That’s both an honor and a responsibility, said Clarida, who found herself signing hats, shoes, T-shirts and taking photos with lines of little girls at her last rodeo in Amboy.
“I went out there to prove something to myself about myself,” Clarida said of bull riding. “To see that other people can see it too, and want to be like that really solidifies that I’m doing this not just for myself but for everyone out there, too.”
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas